Sidewalklopnik

"MM54" (mm54mk2)
10/21/2017 at 22:31 • Filed to: Houselopnik

Turned out pretty well. Read on for details and other problems.

To make a long story short, when I bought this house the driveway had sunken 4 inches (as had the sidewalk). This past summer I had the driveway leveled using magical foam injected under it (skeptical but it’s got a 5-year warranty so we’ll see). This left the sidewalk considerably lower than the driveway, the bottom of which was now to the top of the sidewalk.

As a solution to this I broke out part of the sidewalk today and formed it up to be level with the driveway. 12.5 80-lb bags of concrete (and a borrowed mixer) later it’s as shown above. There’s still a step, but it’s in a more reasonable spot. It wasn’t worth doing the whole thing for the reason below:

Here’s the kicker - the footer of the porch also sank down several inches in the 40-ish years since the house was built. I very recently discovered that the concrete slab on top isn’t even sitting on the foundation at that corner (previous owners spread mortar over the brick, which can be seen to be cracking because duh) but rather being supported by the tensile strength of the rest of the slab (!). So that will probably crack/drop at some point.

There’s a good chance that to fix it the entire porch (I’d say 7x16' without actually knowing the measurements) is going to need dismantled, a new footer poured, brick laid, top slab poured, etc. I’ve classified this as a “next year problem” though. Not looking forward to that, cost-wise.

DISCUSSION (10)

arl > MM54
10/21/2017 at 22:51

Holy crap - that sounds like a lot of issues. I’ve done a few small concrete repairs myself over the years, and there’s one thing I know about concrete. It’s the heaviest damn stuff on the planet. Maybe off the planet as well. In fact, black holes may just be millions of bags of Quickrete spinning at high velocity.

Your fix looks good in the pic. Hope it holds!

MM54 > arl
10/21/2017 at 23:18

Cutting open and tossing those 80lb bags into the mixer sure is good exercise, if nothing else! My back is already saying “why?” - tomorrow morning might not be too pleasant.

Really the worst part of the whole thing was probably breaking out the old concrete, and even that isn’t too bad once you get it to start cracking. Takes a lot of time and labor in any case, though.

I agree with the sentiment about black holes.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > MM54
10/22/2017 at 00:31

Hate concrete. 80-lb bags of Quickcrete are the worse to handle than unsavory family members. I also have trouble getting the perfect mixture of crete and water in the mixer...

Urambo Tauro > MM54
10/22/2017 at 01:11

Looks good! I did some concrete work this past year as well (a first for me); I should probably post about it...

OPPOsaurus WRX > MM54
10/22/2017 at 20:12

You could just dig under the slab a couple feet ata time and fill the hole with concrete

MM54 > OPPOsaurus WRX
10/22/2017 at 22:05

That wouldn’t put that corner of the porch back where it should be, though.

OPPOsaurus WRX > MM54
10/23/2017 at 07:59

the way you worded it, it sounded like the porch hadn;t moved, only the footing.

MM54 > OPPOsaurus WRX
10/23/2017 at 17:58

Ah, sorry. The whole thing dropped some, then the footer and part of the brick that should be holding up the slab kept going after the slab said “nah I’m good here” which created the gap/cantilevered slab condition.

OPPOsaurus WRX > MM54
10/23/2017 at 19:52

i doubt you could get the equipment but injecting concrete in there would fix your issue. Boston was fixing one of the subway stations by injecting concrete into the ground. They created so much pressure it shifted the foundation on an adjacent church and cracked a wall. I’m sure you could lift your porch that way.

MM54 > OPPOsaurus WRX
10/23/2017 at 20:30

That’s basically what I had done with the driveway, except instead of concrete slurry they injected expanding foam. I may call that company back and see if they have any opinions on the matter.